Mortalis

Abbot Braumin and his advisers, Viscenti, Talumus, and Castinagis, stood across the flower bed from the trio.

Now it was Jilseponie's turn to take a deep breath. This was her moment, a critical one for the fate of all the world.

She told them the story, all of it, of Dainsey and Roger, of her trip to the Barbacan with Bradwarden and Dainsey, of the ghost of Romeo Mullahywhich made Master Viscenti gasp fearfully-and of the second miracle of Aida.

'I, too, have kissed the hand of Avelyn,' Jilseponie finished. 'Thus, the rosy plague cannot touch me.'

The expressions coming back at her from across the tussie-mussie bed ranged from joyful Master Viscenti, hopeful Brother Talumus, skeptical Brother Castinagis, and, even worse than that, something beyond skeptical, sympathetic Abbot Braumin. Beside Jilseponie, Tetrafel was more animated, was grabbing at the hope she had just offered to him.

'Then you are my angel,' he said, taking Jilseponie's hand in his own. 'You will take this wretched disease from my body!'

Jilseponie turned to him, trying to find the words to explain to him that, while there was indeed an answer, a true hope, she was not the source of his, or anyone else's, cure.

'The plague is not always fatal,' Abbot Braumin interrupted. Jilseponie and Tetrafel both turned to regard him, for the manner in which he had spoken those words showed that he believed Jilseponie's 'revelation' to be nothing so spectacular. 'People have been cured, though it is rare,' the abbot went on.

'Then why do you hide behind your walls? ' Duke Tetrafel demanded.

'One in twenty, so say the old songs,' the abbot calmly replied. 'One in twenty might be helped, but one in seven will afflict the helping brother. We hide because those numbers, learned through bitter experience, demand that we hide.'

Tetrafel trembled and seemed on the verge of an explosion. 'This is different,' Jilseponie put in. 'Dainsey was not helped by meindeed, I tried and was repulsed, again and again.'

'Perhaps you had more success than you believed,' suggested Braumin.

Jilseponie was shaking her head before he ever finished the words. 'I had no effect, and was, in fact, afflicted by my efforts. Yet the plague is not within me any longer and cannot enter this, my body purified by the blood of Avelyn. It is real, Ab-Braumin. It is real and it is up there, at the Barbacan, the cure for the plague for those who can make the journey, the armor that can turn it aside without fail.'

Now it was Braumin's turn to shake his head, but that only made Jilseponie press on more forcefully.

'You doubt, as many doubted your own tale of a miracle at Mount Aida,' she reminded him. 'I speak of ghosts and of blood on a hand long petrified. I speak of a miraculous recovery by a woman who had already begun her journey into Death's dark realm. And so it is difficult for you to dare to hope.' She paused and stared at the abbot intently, even came forward onto the tussie-mussie bed. 'You know me, Braumin Herde. You know who I am and what I have done. You know of my attributes and of my failings. False hope has never been among those failings.'

'The bell! The bell!' came a cry, echoing along the corridors and the ramparts. 'The bell!' the excited young brother cried again, scrambling down beside the abbot and the other leaders of the abbey. 'My abbot, the bell!' he stammered, pointing back toward the abbey's central bell tower. The man hardly seemed able to stand, so overwhelmed was he.

'What is it, Brother Dissin?' Braumin demanded, putting his hands on the man's shoulders, trying to hold him steady.

'The bell!' he cried again, tears flowing down his cheeks. 'You must see it!'

Even as he finished, more cries came from the back of the abbey, shouts of 'A sign!' and 'A miracle!'

Castinagis, Talumus, and Viscenti started off that way. Braumin turned to regard Jilseponie and saw that she and her two companions were boldly crossing the flower bed. He started to motion for them to stop but found that he could not-found, to his surprise, that he had come to believe that something extraordinary was indeed happening here, something that he could not and should not deny.

Together they ran into the abbey, up the stone stairs, along a corridor, down another and up another set of stairs, and into the bell tower. They had to push past many brothers-monks who were so overwhelmed that they hardly seemed to notice that Duke Tetrafel, a man infected with the rosy plague, was crowding among them.

Up the winding stairs, they climbed and climbed, coming at last to the highest landing, in plain view of the great bell of St. Precious, the bell Jilseponie had struck with a lightning bolt to herald her arrival in Palmaris. And there, scorched into the side of the old metal, was an unmistakable image: an upraised arm clenching a sword at midblade.

Braumin's jaw fell open. He turned back to the woman. 'How did you

…' he started to ask, but the question fell away, for it was quite obvious that Jilseponie was every bit as stunned and confused as he.

He was tired and he was dirty, and he knew that if he wasn't already afflicted with plague, then he soon would be. But Brother Holan Dellman would not surrender his work, not with so many people dying about the grounds of St. Belfour Abbey.

Nor would Abbot Haney, nor any of the other brothers who had chosen to remain within the structure after the decision had been made to open wide the gates. Three of those brothers had died, and horribly, of plague contracted through their futile healing efforts, and not a single person had been healed, though many lives had been extended somewhat by the heroic efforts.

Even that grim reality had not deterred Haney, Dellman, and the others from the course they knew they must pursue. Nor was Prince Midalis, ever a friend of the common folk, hiding away in his small palace in the complex at Pireth Vanguard. For he, like the monks, could not suffer the cries of the dying.

Midalis had not taken ill yet, but Liam was showing the beginnings of the plague.

Holan Dellman headed for his darkened room, wanting nothing more than to fall down into unconsciousness. He had heard the news of Liam's illness that same morning, soon after he had begun his work with the sick at St. Belfour, and that news, more than his efforts with the sick, had taken the strength from him. How he wanted to go to the man and comfort him! How he wanted to focus all his healing energies on that one man, now, early on, before the plague had taken solid hold of him!

But Dellman could not do that, could not place the fate of his dear friend above that of the others. That was not the way of his faith or of his God; and as much as he had come to love Liam O'Blythe during his time in Vanguard, Holan Dellman loved his God above all else.

But that didn't stop his very human misery at the news.

He collapsed onto his small cot, buried his face into the blankets, and tried to block out all the world.

And then he sensed her, and, with a start, he jerked about and he saw her.

Jilseponie, standing in his room, looking back at him.

Holan Dellman bolted upright. 'How did you get here?' he asked. 'Did the ship-'

Dellman stopped, suddenly realizing that this was not Jilseponie physically before him, was something less substantial. He gasped, trying to find His breath, and retreated across the cot, eyes wide, his head shaking, his body trembling.

'We have found the answer, Brother Dellman,' Jilseponie said to him, in a voice half audible and half telepathic.

Holan Dellman understood spirit-walking, of course, but he had never seen anything this extreme. His first thought was that Jilseponie had died and that her ghost had come to him. But now he realized that this was spirit-walking taken to a level that he had never before seen.

'Brother Dellman!' she said to him, more insistently, and he understood that she was trying to steady him, that her time, perhaps, was not long here in Vanguard.

'Where are you?' he asked.

'In St. Precious,' she answered. Her voice seemed weaker suddenly, and her answer was more a feeling than words, an image of a place that Holan Dellman knew well. So, too, came her next communication-an image of a flat-topped mountain, of a mummified arm protruding from the stone.

'Go there, all the sick and all the well,' Jilseponie said. 'Go and be healed.'

Jilseponie's spirit image vanished.